Producer Kristen's Dad Is A 9/11 Hero

She tells the story of her father, a now retired Port Authority Detective. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
One of six pointy seven Light FM Cubby and Christine
producer Christen eight nine on this Thursday, September eleventh, you know,
always a day that we try to do the normal
show that we do. Yes, keep what happened twenty four
years ago today in mind.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
It's so completely in our hearts and just in our beings,
you know it really is.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Yeah, thinking about so many things right now. We will
acknowledge those key times coming up later on Hey real quick,
producer Christen. If you don't mind, you're working from home today,
So if she sounds a little different, that's why. But
I just saw you posted on Instagram producer Kristen. By
the way, you must follow her, and it's a picture

(00:42):
of your dad and another person that maybe you can
tell me about. And your caption is our hero, We
love you dad, and it's from ground zero and you
just posted it. So what can you tell us about
this picture?

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yes, so, my dad he's a retired part of Already
Detective and at the time on September eleventh, he was
working in Jersey City when it happened. He went into
the city with his partner to you know, help out,
because you know, no one knew what was really going on, right,

(01:16):
So their police van was parked across from the buildings.
He was there when the towers came down. At the time,
I was in high school. I was a freshman, and
in school they let us know what was going on.
They let us watch it on TV in our homerooms.
Every so often a student, you know, would be called
down to the office and sent home. Pretty much. So

(01:39):
at one point everyone was picked up and I remember
not knowing where my dad was. You know, it happened
through him.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
Everything was still very confusing, so it took a while
to hear if he was okay and his whereabouts, but
he was alive. And when we did finally see him
and he finally made it home, I remember standing. I
remember standing at the front door with my mom and

(02:11):
my brothers, and you know, on the other side was
my dad. He was still in his uniform. Sorry, guys, Yeah,
you know, Christ so very hard, very hard to talk
about it.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
It's got to be. It sounds like it just had
to be so scary for you and your your family
when you didn't know, and then to see him again.
I can't imagine the wave of relief that you felt.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Absolutely absolutely relief, you know, and also very scary. I mean,
it's it's an image that is forever embedded in my brain.
You know, he looked at the ghosts, he was covered
in de breathe, and you know, in your head and
in my head at the time, I felt like we
were standing there looking at him for hours, when you know,

(02:54):
obviously in reality it was only probably you know, a
couple of minutes, right exactly, so you know, after a
little while he returned to Ground zero. He was part
of the recovery and the cleanup for a very long time.
You know, my family and I we've we've seen my

(03:16):
dad go through hell essentially. But he was amazing at
his job, a very respected police officer and detective, which
is what he retired as. And yet he still came
home every day, you know, loved his family and whatever

(03:39):
effect it had on him, he never let at least
his kids see it. He always came home, always smile,
and always wanted to play with us. You know, my
brothers are younger than me, so I call him our
hero for always putting his family first, his friends, his
brothers and sisters in blue. We love him and he's

(04:01):
very well deserving of the retirement that he's in right now.
So today he's actually attending you know, different memorials and
masses to pay his respect.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Well, do us a favor and like hug him a
few times. Yes, just from us.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
If you can, please give him our love, all our respect,
all our gratitude. Your dad, his colleagues, all the first responders.
We were talking about the sanitation department who went in
there right after September eleventh and have been cleaning up
a bit. There's just so many people. I feel we
need to think that we can't express it enough how

(04:35):
grateful we are, and what a true hero your dad is,
and your mom and your family because you were there
supporting him through this. I know you're very young, Kristin,
but I'm sure his love and the love of his
family is one of the things that kept him going
and has just been everything to him and to you.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
Yep, thank you, thank you guys.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
All right, Kristin, we love you, and we'll get the
on a life note, get the music ready. Three hours
commercial free coming up next on LIGHTFM.